题目内容
Nowadays people use different ways to communicate with each other. And does one always tell the truth when he or she talks with the other on the phone? Or does one sometimes tell a lie when writing an e-mail or giving an instant message? Recent research has found that communications technologies are far from equal when it comes to conveying the truth. The first study, made by Jeff Hancock of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, to compare honesty across a range of communications media has found that people are twice as likely to tell lies in phone conversations as they are in e-mails. The fact that e-mails are automatically recorded—and can come back to trouble you—appears to be the key to the finding.
Jeff Hancock made an investigation by asking 30 students to keep a communications diary for a week. In it they noted the number of conversations or e-mail exchanges they had lasting more than 10 minutes, and how many lies they told. Hancock then worked out the number of lies per conversation for each medium. He found that lies made up 14 per cent of e-mails, 21 per cent of instant messages, 27 per cent of face-to-face interactions and an astonishing 37 per cent of phone calls.
His results, to be presented at the conference on human computer interaction in Vienna, Austria, in April, have surprised psychologists. Some expected e-mailers to be the biggest liars, reasoning that because the unreal condition makes people uncomfortable, the detachment (非直接接触) of e-mailing would make it easier to lie. Others expected people to lie more in face-to-face exchanges because people are more practiced at that form of communication.
But Hancock says it is also very important and effective whether a conversation is being recorded and could be reread, and whether it occurs in real time. People appear to be afraid to lie when they know that they will be responsible for what they have said in the conversation, he says. This is why fewer lies appear in e-mail than on the phone.
People are also more likely to lie in real time—in an instant message or phone call, say—than if they have time to think of a response, says Hancock. He found many lies are sudden or immediate responses to demands that they don’t expect, such as: “Do you like my dress?”
Hancock hopes his research will help business companies work out the best ways for their employees to communicate. For instance, the phone might be the best medium for selling their products where employees are encouraged to stretch the truth. But given his results, work assessment, where honesty is regarded as more important than others, might be best done using e-mail.
| Jeff Hancock’s study on lying in different ways of communications | |
| The (71) p from the statistics of the investigation | Lies become (72) p when the communicating ways change form (73) p to instant messages to face-to-face interactions to phone calls. |
| The reasons why people lie/don’t lie | · People won’t lie when their conversations will be recorded and can be reread, or when they know they should be (74) p for what they have (75) p . · People lie in real time mostly because they have to answer (76) p questions without hesitation. |
| The (77) p that business companies can have from the study | · Using telephones for (78) p because their employees can stretch the truth. · Using e-mails for work assessment because their employees must tell what they’ve done (79) p . |
| The inference from the study | Suitable media should be chosen for different (80) p purposes. |
71. conclusion 72. more 73. e-mails 74. recorded 75. responsible
76. unexpected 77. benefits 78. sales 79. honestly 80. communication/communicating
